Category Archives: 1901

This romance, set in North Carolina during the later years of the American Revolution, follows the fortunes of two officers. Francis Duane, a lieutenant-colonel on Lord Cornwallis’ staff, and Curtis Baird, a captain in the Continental Army, contend on and off the field. Duane is betrothed to Isabel Burton, daughter of a prominent Salisbury Loyalist, but the actions of Isabel’s plucky cousin Sarah touch Duane’s heart. Baird suspects that Isabel does not agree with her father’s politics, nor with his plans for her future. This book works better as an historical novel than as a romance. General Nathanael Greene and Lord Cornwallis appear throughout the book, and the novel includes a detailed account of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.

Although this novel is set in the mountains of western North Carolina, plantation slavery is presented is part of the local heritage and figures in the plot. The shoe is on the other foot when John Marshall returns to his hometown near Asheville in the 1870s. Northerners have come to this part of the South and they are making their presence felt through land purchases and business deals. His family home has been sold and is now a boarding house run by the optimistic and energetic Portia Van Ostade. Old racial and social attitudes are still alive, but the younger characters find romance across the sectional divide. The happiness of one young couple is threatened by a secret from the past.

Mabel Gordon is a Southern girl whose family was ruined by the Civil War. A wealthy New Yorker takes Mabel under her wing. Mrs. Rowland pays for Mabel’s education, and Mabel serves the Rowland family as a secretary and nurse. Complications arise when Mrs. Rowland’s brother, Colonel Chester, woos Mabel. The colonel’s actions in the Civil War directly harmed the Gordon family, so Mabel’s heart is not easily thawed. The action moves back and forth between North Carolina and New York.

This alternative telling of the Lost Colony story adds some new figures, including 16th century bad-boy dramatist Christopher Marlowe and the main character, Captain John Vytal. Spanish invaders, hostile Native Americans, and internal dissent doom the colony. Marlowe returns to England and meets his fate at that tavern in Deptford. White Doe (Virginia Dare), Dark Eyes (Manteo’s son) and Eleanor Dare flee to the forest, along with Vytal who has long pined for Eleanor.

Colonel Andrews, a major North Carolina cotton planter, persuades Huntley Robertson, a hired hand on a farm in New York, to start out on his own near New Bern in 1900. With little money but lots of determination, Robertson becomes a successful planter.